Tanko'pedia

The Leopard VTGS, officially known as the Versuchsträger Gesamtschutz VTGS in German, in English it means "Total Protection Test Vehicle", also known as the "Leopard Total Protection Testbed" or "Stealth Leopard" was a prototype testbed made to test new tank protection systems as a secondary goal, with its main goal being to test the reduction of IR and radar signatures on tanks.  The prototype was made by Pietzsch GmbH at the municipality of Schlangen, near the town of Paderborn in the mid-1980s. The VTGS was made upon the Leopard 1A3, presumably the 1972 - 1974 model from the fifth production batch, which had a welded turret replacing the famed cast turret. The image above shows a Leopard 1A2, presumably from the same batch, stripped down to see the cast turret. Next to it is the Leopard 1A3 from the ffith production batch with the welded turret. The tank's internal changes were made mainly to allow it to don its new "costume" or look, as t...

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  "According to unverified information from sources in the military-industrial complex, during the Syrian campaign, Uralvagonzavod specialists made about one and a half hundred technological changes to the design of tanks, both in service and promising (designs). The T-14 was no exception. In the course of the military tests on the territory of the SAR ( Syrian Arab Republic), a number of problematic solutions were identified regarding the level of sensitivity of the system for detecting incoming projectiles, an optical-location complex, and a power-plant."

ET-06 (Erpobungstr äger 06) ,   refers to the T-62. First image "4.11 Cross slope travel A 30% cross-slope with a pavement made of molded stone pavement was driven by the ET 06 without difficulty, even when the road surface was damp. The grip of the chain is sufficient, starting the engine was unproblematic. It was not possible to swivel the tower by hand against the slope, but it was ensured with the electric lateral directional gear. The time for a 360 ° turn of the tower (turret) was approx. 22s on the sloping slope and approx. 20s on the level. The Leopard 1 fulfills all requirements for driving on an incline without any restrictions." Image 2 " 4.12  60% gradient The ET 06 was able to negotiate a 60% incline (tower position 12 noon, concrete roadway with transverse steel rails to increase grip) in 1st gear and with the steering lever in 1st notch. The vehicle can be held on this slope with both the parking brake and the steering brake. The start-up causes considerab...

On the 28th December, Russia had offered India to partake in a joint development programme for a main battle tank that was based on the Armata Universal Combat platform, especially the T-14 Armata, stated Valeria Reshetnikova, press secretary of the FSMTC (Федеральной службы по военно-техническому сотрудничеству) in an interview with RIA Novosti. The highlighted area is: (In Russian) "В ходе недавно проведенной российско-индийской межправительственной комиссии по военному и военно-техническому сотрудничеству и российско-индийского саммита индийским партнерам были предложены новые направления работы, в том числе и создание по техническим заданиям заказчика бронетанковой техники на базе платформы "Армата", тем более, учитывая, что индийские военные планируют развернуть работу по созданию нового основного боевого танка." (In English) "During the recently held Russian-Indian intergovernmental commission on military and military-technical cooperation and the Russian...

Around the 22nd December it was officially confirmed that a T-90M Obr. 2017 had officially received the new PNM-T sighting complex, designed for Russian tank modernisations like the T-80BVM, T-72B3 Obr. 2016 and the T-90M. This T-90M Obr. 2017 is not new - four tanks before it had already received the sighting complex. But this time, it had also received a new sight cover, as shown below.  Compared to the old one, shown below is the fourth tank to receive the PNM-T sighting complex, a T-90MS Obr. 2015, shown during the JSC Roboronsexport live-stream on YouTube: The PNM-T is a supposed 640x512 matrix, MWIR (3 - 5 micrometres) sight developed by PJSC ANPP TEMP-AVIA in around 2018 to 2019. Its main purpose was to either completely replace the existing Sosna-U, that was mounted on most T-90M, T-90MS, T-72B3, T-80BVM and some T-90A tanks, ESSA, mounted exclusively on T-90A tanks and Plisa which is used on T-80UE-1 tanks. The sights mentioned above all use French CATHERINE-FC components ...